Mumbai: The counting had run since Tuesday morning. It ended in the small hours of Thursday with Congress's Abhijit Wanjarri ahead by 3,271 votes in the Nagpur Division Graduates' constituency — 67,231 to BJP's Sudhakar Kohale's 63,960.
That seat is not just a seat. It is Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's city, Union minister Nitin Gadkari's parliamentary turf, and the home of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Gadkari represented it from 1990 to 2014. Losing it after more than 41 hours of counting stings in a way a routine defeat does not.
Five teachers' and graduates' seats across Maharashtra went to the polls on October 23. The Maha Vikas Aghadi took three, the BJP-led Mahayuti two. The blame game began within hours.
BJP spokesperson Navnath Ban said the Shiv Sena had not delivered the support it owed its allies in Pune and Nagpur. In Pune, he said, the Sena backed independent Sachin Sanap at the last minute; in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Shiv Sena's Abdul Sattar campaigned openly against the NCP candidate. "Had we fought together, we would have won all five," Ban said.
The Sena answered in kind. There was no coordination on seat-sharing from day one, said party leader Anand Paranjpe. Ravindra Dhangekar, the party's Pune city chief, put it plainly: "The BJP should stop taking its alliance partners for granted."
More than 15,000 votes were declared invalid in Nagpur, including nearly 9,000 ballots that carried the number '2' against Kohale but no preference for the other 37 candidates. Kohale said he will appeal against the invalidations. Chandrashekhar Bawankule, the minister who ran the campaign, accepted responsibility and said the alliance would "track down who played spoilsport".
Elsewhere, NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar)'s Harshada Deshmukh-Jadhav beat BJP's Smita Jadhav in Pune Graduates'. BJP's Kaustubh Gawade took Pune Teachers' and Shiv Sena's Kiran Sarnaik took Amravati Teachers'. In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Graduates', NCP (SP)'s Pratapsinh Patil defeated the NCP's Satish Chavan. NCP president Sunetra Pawar said her party would introspect.